emacs/admin/release-process

This document describes the release process used by GNU Emacs.

* RELEASE CYCLE

Each release cycle will be split into two periods.

** Phase one: development

The first phase of the release schedule is the "heads-down" working
period for new features, on the 'master' branch and any needed feature
branches.

** Phase two: fixing and stabilizing the release branch

Shortly before this phase, Emacs developers will be devoted to
figuring out what features to include in the next release and what
features to defer to a later release.

This phase is mostly spent fixing bugs and documenting new features
and changes on the "emacs-NN" branch.  Actually, the default branch
for pushing any work in this phase should be "emacs-NN", except for
new features.

At the beginning of this phase, a release branch called "emacs-NN"
("NN" represents the major version number of the new Emacs release)
will be cut from 'master'.  When that happens, the version number on
'master' should be incremented; use admin/admin.el's 'set-version'
command to do that, then commit the changes it made and push to
'master'.  For major releases, also update the value of
'customize-changed-options-previous-release'.

Each chapter of the two main manuals, the User Manual and the Emacs
Lisp Manual, should be proofread, preferably by at least two people.
This job is so big that it should be considered a collective
responsibility, not fobbed off on just a few people.  After each
chapter is checked, mark off the name(s) of those who checked it in
the checklist near the end of this file.

In parallel to this phase, 'master' can receive new features, to be
released in the next release cycle.  From time to time, the master
branches merges bugfix commits from the "emacs-NN" branch.
See admin/gitmerge.el.

* RELEASE-CRITICAL BUGS

Emacs uses the "blocking" feature of Debbugs for bugs that need to be
addressed in the next release.

Currently, bug#21966 is the tracking bug for release of 25.2 and
bug#24655 is the tracking bug for release 26.1.  Say bug#123 needs
to be fixed for Emacs 26.1.  Send a message to control@debbugs.gnu.org
that says:

   block 24655 by 123

Change "block" to "unblock" to remove a bug from the list.  Closed
bugs are not listed as blockers, so you do not need to explicitly
unblock one that has been closed.  You may need to force an update of
the tracking bug with ctrl-f5/shift-reload to see the latest version.


* TO BE DONE SHORTLY BEFORE RELEASE

See 'admin/make-tarball.txt' for the details of making a release or pretest.

** Make sure the Copyright date reflects the current year in all source files.
(This should be done each January anyway, regardless of releases.)
See admin/update-copyright and admin.el's set-copyright.
For more details, see 'admin/notes/years'.

** Make sure the necessary sources and scripts for any generated files
are included in the source tarball.  (They don't need to be installed,
so e.g. admin/ is fine.)  This is important for legal compliance.

** Remove temporary +++/--- lines in NEWS.
But first make sure there are no unmarked entries, and update the
documentation (or decide no updates are necessary) for those that aren't.

** Try to reorder NEWS: most important things first, related items together.

** For a major release, add a "New in Emacs XX" section to faq.texi.

** cusver-check from admin.el can help find new defcustoms missing
:version tags.

** Manuals
Check for node names using problematic characters:
  find doc -name '*.texi' -exec grep '^@node[^,]*[:.()]' {} +
Sadly makeinfo does not warn about such characters.

Check for major new features added since the last release (e.g. new
lisp files), and add the relevant authors to the Acknowledgments in
doc/emacs/ack.texi and emacs.texi.

For major releases, rewrite the "Antinews" appendix of the User Manual
(doc/emacs/anti.texi) to describe features lost by downgrading to the
previous version.  The way to do that is read NEWS, pick up the more
significant changes and new features in the upcoming release, then
describe the "benefits" from losing those features.  Be funny, use
humor.  The text written for the previous releases can serve as an example.

Check cross-references between the manuals (e.g. from emacs to elisp)
are correct.  You can use something like the following in the info
directory in the Emacs build tree:

emacs -Q --eval "(progn (require 'info) (setq Info-directory-list '(\".\")))" \
  -f info-xref-check-all

Setting Info-directory-list avoids having system info pages confuse
things.  References to external manuals will be flagged as
uncheckable.  You should still check these, and also that each
external manual has an appropriate redirect in the file manual/.htaccess
in the web pages repository.  E.g.:
Redirect /software/emacs/manual/html_mono/automake.html /software/automake/manual/automake.html
Redirect /software/emacs/manual/html_node/automake/ /software/automake/manual/html_node/

Another tool you can use to check links is gnu.org's linc.py:
https://www.gnu.org/server/source/

You run this with something like:

cd /path/to/cvs/emacs-www
linc.py -o /path/to/output-dir --url https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/ .

Be warned that it is really, really slow (as in, can take ~ a full day
to check the manual/ directory).  It is probably best to run it on a
single directory at a time from e.g. manual/html_node.  It is very
inefficient, but may reveal a few things that info-xref does not.

make emacs.dvi, elisp.dvi, and deal with any errors (undefined
references etc) in the output.  Break any overfull lines.
Underfull hboxes are not serious, but it can be nice to get rid of
them if a simple rephrasing or rearrangement will work.

Update the master menu and detailed menu (e.g. the antinews version).
The command texinfo-multiple-files-update can do this, but you
probably want to apply the results selectively (e.g. the current master
menu has better line-breaks than the automatic version).  It includes
the menu-entry name (if there is one) as well as the node name - using
only the latter looks better.  Also, it doesn't seem to handle nested
includes, so will miss edebug.texi etc.

Check for widow and orphan lines in the printed manual; make sure all
the pages really look OK in the manual as formatted.  Orphans/widows
are cases where the first/last line of a paragraph is on its own at
the end/start of a page, or where the last word in a paragraph is on
its own at the start of a line.  It looks better if you reword/respace
things to avoid these.  (AFAIK, there is no way to find these except
paging through the whole manual.)  This should be the very last thing
you do, since any change can alter the layout.
(Actually, there is probably little point in trying to do this.
It's only really relevant if printed versions of the manuals are going
to be published.  End-users are not likely to print out all 1000+
pages of the manuals, and even if they do, the resulting page breaks
depend on what paper and font size they use.  This also means that if
you _are_ going to do this, it should be done with the paper and font
size that the GNU Press are going to use when they print the manuals.
I think this is different to what you get if you just use e.g. 'make
emacs.pdf' (e.g., enable "smallbook").

** Check the keybindings in the refcards are correct, and add any new ones.
What paper size are the English versions supposed to be on?
On Debian testing, the packages texlive-lang-czechslovak and
texlive-lang-polish will let you generate the cs-* and sk-* pdfs.
(You may need texlive-lang-cyrillic, texlive-lang-german for others.)
The Makefile rules did not work for me, I had to use something like:
csplain -output-format=pdf cs-refcard

** Ask maintainers of refcard translations to update them.

Emacs 22 translators:

LANG	Translator            Status
cs	Pavel Janík
de	Sven Joachim
fr	Eric Jacoboni
pl	Włodek Bzyl
pt-br	Rodrigo Real
ru	Alex Ott
sk	Miroslav Vaško

* BUGS

** Check for modes which bind M-s that conflicts with a new global binding M-s
and change key bindings where necessary.  The current list of modes:

1. Gnus binds 'M-s' to 'gnus-summary-search-article-forward'.

2. Minibuffer binds 'M-s' to 'next-matching-history-element'
   (not useful any more since C-s can now search in the history).

3. 'center-line' in Text mode was already moved to the text formatting
   keymap as 'M-o M-s' (thus this binding is not necessary any more
   in 'nroff-mode-map' too and can be removed now from the nroff mode
   because it can now use the global key binding 'M-o M-s' 'center-line').

4. PCL-CVS binds 'M-s' to 'cvs-status', and log-edit-mode binds it to
   'log-edit-comment-search-forward'.  Perhaps search commands
   on the global key binding 'M-s' are useless in these modes.

5. Rmail binds '\es' to 'rmail-search'/'rmail-summary-search'.


* DOCUMENTATION

** Check the Emacs Tutorial.

The first line of every tutorial must begin with text ending in a
period (".", ASCII 0x2E) saying "Emacs Tutorial" in the respective
language. This should be followed by "See end for copying conditions",
likewise in the respective language.

After each file name, on the same line or the following line, come the
names of the people who have checked it.

SECTION                  READERS
----------------------------------
TUTORIAL
TUTORIAL.bg
TUTORIAL.cn
TUTORIAL.cs
TUTORIAL.de
TUTORIAL.eo
TUTORIAL.es
TUTORIAL.fr
TUTORIAL.he
TUTORIAL.it
TUTORIAL.ja
TUTORIAL.ko
TUTORIAL.nl
TUTORIAL.pl
TUTORIAL.pt_BR
TUTORIAL.ro
TUTORIAL.ru
TUTORIAL.sk
TUTORIAL.sl
TUTORIAL.sv
TUTORIAL.th
TUTORIAL.zh

** Check the manual.

abbrevs.texi 		Steve Byrne
ack.texi
anti.texi
arevert-xtra.texi
basic.texi
buffers.texi
building.texi
calendar.texi
cal-xtra.texi
cmdargs.texi
commands.texi
custom.texi
dired.texi
dired-xtra.texi
display.texi
emacs.texi
emacs-xtra.texi
emerge-xtra.texi
entering.texi
files.texi
fixit.texi
fortran-xtra.texi
frames.texi
glossary.texi
help.texi
indent.texi
killing.texi
kmacro.texi
macos.texi
maintaining.texi
mark.texi
mini.texi
misc.texi
modes.texi
msdos.texi
msdos-xtra.texi
mule.texi
m-x.texi
package.texi
picture-xtra.texi
programs.texi
regs.texi
rmail.texi
screen.texi
search.texi
sending.texi
text.texi
trouble.texi
vc-xtra.texi
vc1-xtra.texi
windows.texi
xresources.texi

** Check the Lisp manual.

abbrevs.texi 		Steve Byrne
anti.texi
back.texi
backups.texi
buffers.texi
commands.texi
compile.texi
control.texi
customize.texi
debugging.texi
display.texi
edebug.texi
elisp.texi
errors.texi
eval.texi
files.texi
frames.texi
functions.texi
hash.texi
help.texi
hooks.texi
index.texi
internals.texi
intro.texi
keymaps.texi
lists.texi
loading.texi
macros.texi
maps.texi
markers.texi
minibuf.texi
modes.texi
nonascii.texi
numbers.texi
objects.texi
os.texi
package.texi
positions.texi
processes.texi
searching.texi
sequences.texi
streams.texi
strings.texi
symbols.texi
syntax.texi
text.texi
tips.texi
variables.texi
windows.texi

* OTHER INFORMATION

For Emacs's versioning scheme, see 'admin/notes/versioning'.

For instructions to create pretest or release tarballs, announcements,
etc., see 'admin/make-tarball.txt'.


Local variables:
mode: outline
coding: utf-8
end: